The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to autonomous formation for backhaul networks.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, or a New Radio (NR) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or access network nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
In some cases, a UE may experience poor communication with a network access device, and the network access device may configure the UE to connect to, and route communications through, one or more relays (e.g., which may be another UE, a network operator-deployed relay). A data routing path between a UE and a Donor eNodeB (DeNB) may include a single relay node (RN) that is transparent to the UE. In some cases, however, it may be desirable for a data routing path to contain multiple such relays. The rollout of such highly densified networks may create a backhaul issue in the absence of wireless backhauling. Accordingly, techniques directed to multi-hop wireless backhaul networks (e.g., such that the data routing path between the UE and donor contains multiple relays) may be desired. For example, such multi-hop wireless backhauling may be important for the rollout of millimeter wave (mmW) access technologies (e.g., because the limited range of mmW-based communications may result in highly densified, small-cell deployments). For the support of wireless backhauling, it may be desirable to enable new relays to autonomously attach to already-integrated relays (e.g., by reusing existing packet data network (PDN) connectivity establishment procedures, and thereby obtaining network connectivity (e.g., data network (DN) connectivity) to the donor).